ARISTOTLE's PHILOSOPHICAL POETICS by POULHERIA KYRIAKOU I in Poet. 1450A38-39 Aristotle Describes the As and Soul, I.E. Form, Of

ARISTOTLE'S PHILOSOPHICAL POETICS

POULHERIA KYRIAKOU

In Poet. 1450a38-39 Aristotle describes the as and soul, i.e. form, of tragedy. The soul is the of living beings (De An. 415b8) and Aristotle's detailed analogy between tragedy and animal (Poet. 1450b34-1451a6, 1459a17-21) indicates that he intended an analogy between and natural substances. This is not surprising at all, since for Aristotle art imitates nature (Phys. 199a15-17). However, Aristotle's brief description of v600q as the

1) On Aristotelian "Funktionalbegriffe" see W. Wieland, Die Aristotelische Physik (Göttingen 1962), 173 ff. (178-179 for 2) See W. Wieland, Das Problemder Prinzipienforschungund die AristotelischePhysik, Kant-Studien 52 (1960-1961), 206-219. 3) For discussions of Aristotle's definition of soul see R. Bolton, Aristotle'sDefi- nition of theSoul: De An. 2.1-3, Phronesis 23 (1978), 258-278, J.L. Ackrill, Aristotle's Definitionof Psuch�in:, J. Barnes, M. Schofield, R. Sorabji (eds.), Articleson Aristo- tle, 4 (London 1978), 65-75 and W. Charlton, Aristotle'sDefinition of Soul,Phronesis 25 (1980), 170-186. Cf. also C.A. Freeland, Aristotleon Bodies, Matter and Poten- tiality, in: A. Gotthelf, J.G. Lennox (eds.), PhilosophicalIssues in Aristotle'sBiology (Cambridge 1981), 392-407. 345 while v600q is tragedy's (Poet. 1450a22-23). The soul operates on its oixsia Vhq (De An. 414a26) and consequently as an actuality and the soul of tragedy, obviously has to operate on some olxiia too (De An. 414a25-26). This is not a natural body but the tragedy's raw material mentioned in its definition (Poet. 1449b24-25)5). The above similarities between v600q and soul indicate their significant difference: is not a natural substance and its olxiia cannot be anything like the oixeia 5XT] Of SOU16).Moreover, the relationship between soul and natural body cannot parallel that of ?.u9oS and its 5X-n. What is then the tertium comparationis in Aristotle's analogy between soul and Tragedy's definition (Poet. 1449b24-28) contains two terms whose meaning is philosophical and even mathematical: viy100q and Moreover, Aristotle stipulates that the imitated by the and consequently the v600q and the tragedy itself, should be 6X-nand via. The terminology shows that the Aristotelian definition of tragedy is couched in terms of continuity. In Met. 102a7 ff. viy100q is defined as a species of 1toO'óv which is divisible into continuous parts and potential divisibility is a major characteristic of continuity7). TE7?ECOVis the collection of the parts

4) actually figures here not as but as because being presupposes a form (Met. 1021b21-23). For the difference between and see L. Cencillo, Hyle. Origen, Concepto yFunciones de la Materia en el CorpusAristotelicum (Madrid 1958), 114 ff. It is not surprising that the of tragedy appears in the definition of tragedy next to its form, the because the and the form are one and the same thing, although they differ in function (Met. 1045b17-19); see H. Happ, Hyle (Berlin/New York 1971), 45. 5) For another case of functioning as see EN 137b13 ff.: which belongs to and deals with the (EN 1110b6-7and 1141b16) is the of law which is a See the discussion of this passage in Happ (above, note 4), 706-707. Aristotle's discussion of the difference between poetry and history in Poet. 1451a36 ff. shows that the relationship between poetry and is equivalent to that of law and Poetry deals with the (Poet. 1451b6- 7) and not with the (Poet. 1451b7, 10-11) which are 6) For the definition of the continuum see Phys. E ch. 3 and Met. 1015b36- 1016a12and H.J. Waschkies, Von Eudoxus zu Aristoteles, Studien zur Antiken Philosophie8 (Amsterdam 1977), 158-163 and 190-197. 7) For the mathematical origin of the terms and see T.L. Heath, Mathematicsin Aristotle(Oxford 1948), 43-44 and Waschkies, (above, note 6), 143- 144. Cf. however W. Knorr, The Evolution of the Euclidean Elements, Synthese Historical Library 15 (Dordrecht/Boston 1975), 291 n. 32. For the mathematical origin of Aristotle's theory of continuity see Waschkies Part II. See also M. Gave-